The Telegraph reports that Tottenham are set to launch their opening bid for Benteke sometime next week. Andre Villas-boas is set to bid £20 million pounds for the Belgium forward. Tottenham don’t believe that the £25 million price is a realistic valuation of the forward. The report also claims that Tottenham are set to offer Benteke a wage of £70,000 a week, this triples the amount that Benteke earns at Villa Park. Villas-boas is set to promise the Belgium a starting spot, with Adebayor set to be sold before the end of the transfer window.

I doubt that Lerner will budge from the clubs £25 million price tag so we’ll see what develops, I think Tottenham will start with an opening bid and this could very well increase. However, the extent of the increase is the current question. If nothing materialises, Benteke will stay at Villa Park, he still has 3 years left on his contract.

The Mirror reports that Darren Bent is on top of Newcastle’s wish list and Joe Kinnear will start to negotiate the move as he returns to work on Monday. Bent has been told by Aston Villa he can leave the club and has been left out of the German tour. Aston Villa would like re-coup £8 million from Bent, however this is still a major loss of the original £22 million that was spent on Bent. Since Aston Villa are so keen on selling Bent, the fee maybe a tad bit off the £8 million

I can see Fulham coming in for Bent. We don’t need to sell Benteke, setting the deadline is a good idea, Spurs need to stump up the cash or move onto the next target. Seen a few Spurs fans saying we are asking for too much, so let the prick rot in the reserves our wage bill is now under control, the ball is in Spurs court, if Levy plays games I hope Faulkner and Lerner prove there worth and don’t roll over at the first opportunity. Pay the 25m no players and make sure we get sell on clauses, if he has a good season again he will be off to Madrid a double the 25m

For some reason I have the feeling that benteke will stay, however, I can help but feel slightly excited by the opportunity of grabbing £25-30 mill for him and buying 3or 4 top top players!
Teams in the past have actually benefited in a way from there best player leave…
For example, Tottenham selling berba and having a better squad as a result. And now Dortmund selling gotze and buying 3 new players as a result!

If worse comes to worst and we lose benteke and grab £25 mill, I can’t help but feel that the team could benefit if we for example bought, kiyotake, a striker, centre mid, defender, winger? Anyone else agree?

Will lambert get the full £25m though and if he does will he spend it? If benteke stays I’d keep him in £20k per week to teach him a lesson but give him a 1m bonus if he gets 20 plus goals for us to make him earn it.

I think we need to build the squad slowly and carefully, aim for a position around 10th this season and then start looking at better players to buy. I’m not convinced being in 15th is that attractive to promising players (look at Benteke), we wouldn’t have this issue if we were in sixth or eighth, because we could make the case that we are pushing for the CL. We have the size and facilities, and Lerner can pay good wages and come up with cash when necessary (Bent). A few players like Benteke are what we need to take us forward, and how the club deals with him is going to make it clear what our plans are. When Lambert arrived, compared to the season before, we had a new defence, new midfield (Albrighton and Delph had played before) and new strike force, with the exception of Gabby and Bent. Guzan had covered for Given and covered cup matches but that’s about it – I have glossed over Herd, Lichaj, Stevens, Bannan and possibly one or two others, they didn’t see enough play and didn’t feature in the second half of the season. Ireland blotted his copybook early on. So we have a mostly new squad, which has been strengthened with some new signings. Exceptional players last season were Benteke, Guzan, Lowton, Westwood and Wiemann, with Gabby, Baker and Delph not far behind. Sylla showed promise but the rest need a bit of work and if they play this season it should be to play for their places. We have a new wave of four or so fresh signings plus some very promising talent coming up from the academy. Sure, some will fall by the wayside but even if we only get a couple of good players from the new signings and a couple from the academy we’re showing a lot of promise. No, we’re not rushing towards a CL place, or even the top ten, but we have the building blocks for a good squad, and what we have was starting to gel in the second half of the last season. Remember how much in disarray we were at the start of last season? I can see Lerner and Lambert, with the help of whoever is finding these foreign players, continuing to put the whole club in good stead, and the team climbing the league. If the plan is to make it as attractive as possible to sell the club then we’d better hope it’s someone good coming in. Lerner is putting his house in order and if he is doing it to build the club up over a few seasons then we should be in for a good ride. Of course if in a couple of seasons we’re still hanging around 15th there won’t be many of us left sticking up for the owner/management.

A concern with aiming for10th is that if we don’t reach that we end up in a relegation dog fight. We need to aim for Europa league spot, then if we don’t make it we will end up mid-table. To achieve that we have to recruit accordingly. But before any more come in we need to get rid of the unwanted. That will determine the type and quality of player we can bring in. Especially if we continue with the policy of playing the unwanted in the reserves.

I’m not so sure, 10th is realistic to aim for with what we have. A lot of our players are still inexperienced in the PL, all of the new boys are. If the plan is to cut costs and rebuild then aiming too high too soon will involve buying up experienced, more expensive players on higher wages, which clearly isn’t the plan, or just being bloody lucky. I like the idea of buying in the most promising lower league players and exciting new talent from abroad, getting them on a good basic with a three-year contract and then if they turn out to be good, up the wage with a longer contract (see Guzan, Wiemann, Westwood, Lowton, Benteke) and if it doesn’t work out, let them fight for their starting place (see Bennett in particular, maybe Vlaar too). The risk being it all goes tits up, and as we saw last season it came very close. On the other hand the starting 11 didn’t really form itself until earlier this year, and with Vlaar out around Christmas we fell apart with Clark and Baker at the back. Next season players like Lowton, Wiemann, Westwood and Guzan will all have two full seasons of PL behind them and I think they will prove to be the bedrock around which the team is built. Gabby will hopefully be injury-free, and with a whole season to build up his confidence I think we’re going to see him causing a lot of trouble and scoring a lot of goals. So it is a longer term rebuild but we really are starting from the bottom. Think about it, with the exception of N’Zog, how many of the starting 11 from 2013 so far have played for any other PL team? I’m pretty sure they all came from the academy or were bought in from abroad or lower league. To finish the second half of the season so well (ignoring all the bloody goals shipped) was pretty good for what we started with. It’s a complete rebuild and will take time.

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